How to Best Protect Your Home PC from Viruses

Every now and then, we will receive a call about antivirus. Typically these are people calling to know which software they should use at home. IsMalwarebytes good enough? I hear that AVG Free is a great tool? What about Microsoft Essentials?

The other day, after over 15 years working in the IT Field, I came up with my final answer. Yes, I’m ready to be a millionaire. The final answer to the home antivirus question is, “What do you use at work?”

Okay, I’m a Jeopardy fan, so I don’t mind answering with a question. But in all reality this is the correct solution. When a company looks into investing in an antivirus solution it is to protect the assets of the company. They want to ensure these three things:

1) intellectual property is protected
2) accounting and banking is secure
3) machines don’t get infected and incur costs in downtime for employees, with reduced services for their clients and the fees to get the virus cleaned up and removed.

When you are looking for antivirus at home, aren’t you look for the same thing? You want to make sure that you can come home for a busy day at work and know that you can play a good came against Fritz 12, pay your Discover card and don’t have to make a trip to Best Buy and pay outrageous amounts to get your wedding pictures off an infected hard drive.

Yes, there are free tools out there. Although I wouldn’t recommend AVG Free, I have and do use the other utilities from time to time to cleanup viruses. However, if you truly want an antivirus solution, look at what you use in your office. It is a good starting place for the right recommendation.